Initiative For Indigenous Futures

Initiative For Indigenous Futures

Indigenous Character Design & Machinimagraphs – WAMP

Location: WAMP (Western Arctic Moving Pictures), Yellowknife, NT

Date: May 6th, 2016

Duration: 3 hours

Facilitators: Skawennati, Jason Edward Lewis

Overview: Beginning with an overview of the pop-culture stereotypes of Indigenous people in popular, followed by a discussion of why self-representation is so important, this workshop focused on customizing an avatar in Second Life, the massively multi-user online environment. Participants learned how to navigate in the virtual environment, customize an avatar, and communicate with others in-world. Once they were comfortable using the online tool, they worked on customizing their avatars to look like Indigenous characters. Once participants finalized their avatar, they then took their portrait using Second Life’s in-world camera.